PROVO, Utah — From the straight-to-YouTube 3-pointers to an endless reel of highlight shows to knockoff T-shirts, Jimmer Mania has spread across the country. But it is hard to pinpoint the moment when Brigham Young’s Jimmer Fredette transformed from basketball star to national sensation, from fan favorite to cult hero, from boy next door to phenomenon.

For those who knew Jimmer before he became the Jimmer, the moment that best crystallized his sun-kissed senior season came when Fredette effortlessly swished a shot from one step inside halfcourt in a game against Utah.

“That’s the shot that tells you who he is because he doesn’t even react,” said Jim Hart, who coached Fredette in summer basketball with the Albany City Rocks. “He doesn’t smile or pump a fist. He’s more likely to pump his fist when someone else hits a shot; he knows that he’s going to do it.”

The 6-foot-2 Fredette, who leads the nation in scoring (27.4 points a game) and out-of-Provo-ZIP-code 3-pointers, finally gets his shot on national television Saturday when No. 7 B.Y.U. travels to No. 6 San Diego State. That CBS is televising the game instead of a cable network is perhaps the ultimate testament to Jimmer Mania.

But for those who saw him growing up in Glens Falls, N.Y., the country is late hitching up to the bandwagon. Fredette lit up Albany-area elementary schools, hit 49 of 50 3-pointers in workouts and lit up convicts in prison games.

“Everyone else is surprised, but I knew he’d be a big-time scorer like that,” said the Penn State senior Talor Battle, who is from Albany. “I always knew he had it in him.”

Glens Falls is known more as a whistle-stop town for hoops stars during the New York State high school tournament than as an area that cultivates its own stars. Fredette fondly recalls daylong tournament binges, watching players like Stephon Marbury, Julius Hodge and Sebastian Telfair, all while nursing $5 at the concession stand.

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As a 4-year-old, Fredette hated losing to his brother, who was seven years older, but didn’t want him to go easy on him either.Credit
George Frey/Associated Press

Fredette’s path from Glens Falls came full circle this season when B.Y.U. played Vermont at the Glens Falls Civic Center, with fans filling the arena to the rafters. Fredette’s path to college stardom began on a concrete slab basketball court behind the family home. His brother, T. J., who molded and mentored Jimmer, recalled a home video in which the 4-year-old Jimmer kicked the fence out of frustration after T. J. blocked his shot. But when T. J., who is seven years older, backed off to let him shoot, Jimmer called him back over to guard him closely.

“If he lost, he’d cry he was so mad; it would ruin his day and week,” T. J. Fredette said. “It was an ultimate high to win and ultimate low to lose. That’s unusual to see in a kid at such a young age.”

Fredette’s first buzz-worthy game came in eighth grade when he scored 51 points in a double-overtime loss to the Albany City Rocks. Fredette carried a team made up mostly of local teammates against a cast of Albany’s best players.

“He looked like a little fat kid, and he was absolutely destroying an inner-city team,” said Hart, the opposing coach, who eventually lured Fredette to his team.

Battle recalled hitting the winning shot that day after Fredette fouled out, and it started a friendly rivalry and strong friendship. If Fredette saw that Battle scored 40, he wanted 41. If Battle saw that Fredette’s Glens Falls High School team won by 15, he wanted his Bishop Maginn High School team to win by 16. Hart said that within tight-knit Albany basketball circles, Battle and Fredette became the area’s version of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Local folks would argue for hours over who was better.

“I think it raised both of our games to the next level,” Fredette said. “It made us what we are today.”

T. J. Fredette also organized workouts that took place at the Latter-Day Saints church in Queensbury, N.Y., where their father had a key to the gym. T. J. Fredette ran Jimmer through a drill known as the Gantlet, where Jimmer would dribble down a dark hallway, trying to avoid knocking over pictures of Jesus hanging on the wall. Once Jimmer mastered handling the ball in the dark, T. J. had friends jump out of doorways to prepare him for the unexpected.

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Fredette, with Malcolm Thomas of San Diego State, faces S.D.S.U. again Saturday in a rare nationally televised game for B.Y.U.Credit
George Frey/Associated Press

“He’s a creative, creative kid,” Jimmer said of T. J., an aspiring rapper. “Some of the things he made me do, that’s a little weird looking back on it. But it helped.”

After Jimmer turned 18, T. J. Fredette took him to the Mount McGregor Correctional Facility in Wilton to play pick-up games against inmates. John Montgomery, the recreational director at the medium-security prison, said those inmates committed crimes ranging from drunken driving to manslaughter.

Fredette said the inmates bet cigarettes on the games and said he could hear them changing their bets as he started hitting shots. “It made us more mentally tough,” Fredette said.

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Fredette has not played at Mount McGregor since high school, but some of those inmates who competed against him hooted and hollered when he scored 37 points in an N.C.A.A. tournament first-round game against Florida last year.

“They hadn’t heard of him when he came in, but they’re really enjoying it now,” said Montgomery, who has worked at Mount McGregor for 19 years.

Fredette’s Mormon faith is part of the reason he chose B.Y.U., but it was also his best offer. He grew up rooting for Syracuse and North Carolina, and just about every recruiter on the East Coast saw him playing for the high-profile City Rocks. But offers came only from B.Y.U., Utah, Siena, Fordham and Massachusetts.

“I think everyone in the Northeast fell into the same trap,” said Steve DeMeo, an assistant at Hofstra who scouted Fredette while at Providence. “I think basketball coaches are guilty of stereotyping, and to get past that you have to watch the kid play a lot of times.”

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Fredette, the nation’s top scorer, is the object of a great deal of affection in Provo.Credit
Colin E. Braley/Associated Press

The B.Y.U. assistant Dave Rice said it took two possessions for the Cougars’ staff members to realize they needed to recruit Fredette seriously when he came to camp there as a sophomore. The Cougars made Fredette their top recruiting priority. Coach Dave Rose flew to watch Fredette play football his junior season on a rain-soaked night. Rose also recalls nervously checking the gym during the July recruiting period to be sure that no powerhouses swooped in and stole him. Still, the B.Y.U. staff could not project him anything beyond an all-league player.

“Can you project that a guy is someday going to become the face of college basketball his senior year?” Rice said. “It’s hard to predict that.”

Both Rose and Rice played on renowned teams in college. Rice won a national title at Nevada-Las Vegas in 1990, and Rose was part of the Phi Slama Jama team at Houston that lost to North Carolina State in the 1983 national title game.

The Mountain West Conference lacks an ESPN contract, which reduces the program’s visibility, Rose said. Still, B.Y.U. is headed to its fifth straight N.C.A.A. tournament despite the fact that on Selection Sunday, Rose said, every year “people don’t know a lot about our team.”

He added, “As far as national exposure is concerned, the TV contract with the Mountain has made that more of a challenge.” (B.Y.U. will join the West Coast Conference next season.)

Fredette did not immediately show signs that he would be a surefire N.B.A. first-round pick. He arrived on campus weighing 210 pounds and was unable to run a six-minute mile. Though he did not start a game as a freshman, he now laughs when recalling that he “almost died” at his first conditioning session at B.Y.U.

Fredette is now a chiseled 195 pounds with the broad shoulders of a strong safety and a vertical jump of 36 inches, and he can run a 5:36 mile. The B.Y.U. strength coach Justin McClure teases Fredette for his runner’s watch and running tights, but said there was a reason Fredette had improved: “His work ethic is amazing.”

So is his remarkable story. From Glens Falls, N.Y., to the mountains of Utah to a national television game. As his legend grows, Fredette seems to keep outrunning expectations.

“I don’t think anyone predicted he’d be this good,” Hart said. “At the same time, I wouldn’t have doubted anything that he could do.”

Correction: March 17, 2011

An article on Feb. 26 about the emergence of Jimmer Fredette and the Brigham Young men’s basketball team erroneously included a New York student on a list of high school players whom Fredette said he recalled watching while growing up. Kenny Anderson, who played at Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens and went on to be a guard in the N.B.A., was not one of them. (Fredette was born just a few months before Anderson graduated from high school, in 1989.)

A version of this article appears in print on February 26, 2011, on Page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: Where The Show Started. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe